McLaren F1 Sells for £3.5 Million

OK, so it's not the most expensive car in the world, that honor goes to Sir Stirling Moss's $35 million Ferrari 250 GTO, but it's still wildly expensive and having sold for over £3.5 million is awarded the title of most expensive "modern supercar" ever sold. With only 64 road-going models ever built, the ultra-rare McLaren F1 rarely comes on the open market so when British supercar dealer Tom Hartley Jr. put his model up for sale he was expecting plenty of interest as well as a nice fat check.

"I think the McLaren F1 is the best car ever built," said Hartley Jr., who has been selling cars since he was eleven years old from his family's exotic car business in Derbyshire, UK. "It was light-years ahead of its rivals and the model that I have sold is undoubtedly one of the best of the road-going F1s ever built." Four years ago a similar model went for £2.53 million in auction, so that's a considerable jump and perhaps indicative of how the rare supercar market is heading. "When you compare it to the Bugatti Veyron said Tom, "you appreciate the Veyron's technology, but the F1 is much rarer and for its time, was so advanced."

The F1 boasts a 6.1-liter V12 rated at 627 horsepower, which helps propel the centrally-mounted driver from standstill to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds and onto a top speed of 243 mph. McLaren built the car between 1993 and 1998 and at the time it was the world's fastest car. It remains the world's fastest naturally-aspirated car. Whoever the new buyer is, he has joined an elite group of McLaren F1 drivers including Jay Leno and Rowan Atkinson, with the Mr. Bean actor guilty of crashing his model twice.